Protector
by The Exile
Summary: The statue of the heroine in Termi rests on top of the hill. Rune makes sure Chaz and Rika have left before he makes his own vigil. They have a life ahead of them that he mustn't disturb. He has old mistakes to undo, if it is even possible. Mildly creepy postgame AU, spoilers, mild language.


The statue of the heroine in Termi rests on top of the hill, surrounded by well-tended gardens of white flowers and carefully groomed topiaries. A plaza with a large, ornately carved stone archway and several large benches has been built around the statue. Branching off from the path, at the top of a slightly higher hill, a small gift shop and cafe plies its trade to tourists who travel from all corners of Motavia to learn about the heroine in what has become a pilgrimage. Fragile yellow butterflies flit through the flowerbeds. The weather is mild by the standards of the desert planet, Termi being close to the sea, and a young couple lounge on the grass next to the statue, enjoying the soporific rays of the gentle evening sun. This is a place of peace, protected by the spirit of a two-thousand-year-old warrior Queen who has become almost a deity in the long millennia where the consequences of her actions have cascaded into a thousand events that have saved the star system time and time again. The young man, now dressed in a simple, unarmoured jacket and trousers, clothes of peacetime, feels something special as he stares up at the serene but strong face of the young woman from aeons ago. He has seen her face before, heard her voice, felt her spirit, if only in a vision. As he grasped her sword, it had been as though she were fighting beside him, as though the spirits of all the fallen legends of Algol were there at that decisive battle.

That sword is shattered, now, but not in defeat. He is the one who finished what she started, who put both their souls to rest. Before heading home, he will visit the grave of his former mentor who was taken from him in their battle, to inform her that he had spoken to Alis Landale and that everything was finished up.

The young woman beside him on the grass gazes at the long-eared, long-tailed cat on the plinth who looked like the talking yellow cats she met on Dezolis, or dreamily up at the sky, happy to still be alive in a growing, breathing world, and to be beside him in a time when they can finally rest and live like people are supposed to again. Mostly, she is just thankful she made the choice to be with him.

"Did you say that Rune sometimes comes here?" Rika asks.

"I used to see him once or twice, yes," replies Chaz, "Not since we parted ways, though. He promised me we wouldn't see each other and we don't. I wouldn't be surprised if he's avoiding me. One of his conceited efforts to teach me some kind of lesson in self-reliance, as though I was his apprentice. As though I would ever want to be like him!"

"He looked happy when he saw us together, though," she says, "I hope we do meet up with all our friends again soon. Even the ones who live in Dezolis. I don't think it's impossible. We thought we had lost our last spaceship and we found another one."

"I guess not," admits Chaz, trying not laugh at her child-like sincerity, "It gets lonely that I even miss Rune."

He gazes up at the statue one last time. Its craftsmanship is almost scarily adept, so life-like, sometimes he swore he saw a hint of movement.

"He used to stare up at the statue too," Chaz adds, "He looked so sad..."

* * *

Rune Walsh, the fifth Lutz, watches the couple leave as the sun began to go down. He hoped they would get back to Krup and then to Aiedo safely before the really dangerous monsters came down at night. Out of everyone on the planet, he knew on the most profound and intimate level that Motavia wasn't safe yet, wasn't even fully fixed. This peace wouldn't remain. It was brought about by the end of an era and the fact that the cycle of fate might never turn again would ultimately cause more problems than it would fix. A Lutz - no, he was still only a Lutz-in-training - a Lutz-in-training had to think about things like that. He wasn't allowed his reward quite yet. He wouldn't deny Chaz that reward by dragging him back into his own life and affairs. That was why he was avoiding the young Hunter. He didn't particularly care that Chaz was being rude and whiny about it. It just meant that Chaz was still Chaz, and that he really hadn't spotted Rune as the wizard sat outside the cafe at a patio table, drinking a cup of tea. All he had needed to do was dye his hair green and change into a brown tunic. He hadn't even needed to use any illusion magic. Light, but that boy was stupid sometimes!

His remaining tea in the pot had gone cold. He hadn't noticed how late it was, how long he had spent brooding, spying on Chaz and trying to steel himself for the inevitable reunion, until the owner announced in an annoyed voice that the cafe was now closed for the night. The park never closed. There was no particular need to close it. Someone had lit the lanterns that made the rather steep path up to the hill safe to walk on. He didn't need it but he used it anyway: one of his current self-taught Lutz lessons was not to rely on magic too much. Checking that he is alone and unheard, he kneels to the statue as if in need of spiritual supplication, then whispers to her.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"I'm sorry I was distracted for so long," he continues after a deep breath, "Everything kind of happened at once, like you warned me it does. I've been looking, I swear. I've spent all my time looking since things quietened down. I just can't find any more. Not in Tonoe, not in the Ladea Tower, not with the Musk Cats. I... if I accidentally used the last one, I..."

He presses his head against the statue, trying not to let his voice break, or let any more tears follow the two that streak down his cheeks despite his best efforts, "I'll never stop looking. I've been looking into alternative solutions. Asking anyone in the Esper Mansion with a talent in that kind of thing. The priests in Dezolis, the ones who aren't too busy picking up the pieces after the mess with the Gumbious. I've asked historians about precedent cases and known solutions. Gone down all the really old dungeons. Nothing. Never a single thing."

He doesn't add his last remaining unspoken thought. He knows Alis doesn't want to hear it, that she'd be angry, maybe never forgiven. He's wronged her too much already, let her down in her greatest hour of need. No need to reveal what a cold-hearted bastard he could be, deep in the alcoves of his soul he had needed to seal off with bricks since the solar system decided he was some kind of Saint and he had been given no say in the matter.

 _I wish I had just left the whole damn town of Zema how it was, stupid scientists and all._

* * *

He had been on his way to Tonoe anyway when Alys turned up out of nowhere with some new apprentice who had apparently been trained to full Hunter status since they last met. He had always liked Alys – maybe it was the similarity in name to the last person in Algol he had given a shit about - so he couldn't refuse a request to help her out, even when it turned out she needed the last remaining bottle of Alsulin as well. He knew Alys too well to try and convince her that any one woman was more important than an entire town. Grandfather Dorin was the only other person who knew about the whole mess he was in, so he took Rune quietly off to one side and announced that they were on an urgent trip to the Ladea Tower, the only other surviving ancient storehouse that hadn't been thoroughly excavated and looted, turned into a shrine or both.

There wasn't any in the Ladea Tower either. Then Alys died in battle and he felt even more ready to give up. He might have done so. He could have stopped visiting Termi, stopped torturing himself with these 'reunions', otherwise known as, 'let's stand with a nice cup of tea and look at the constant glaring reminder of your abysmal failures on a giant fucking podium in the middle of Termi'.

There were many highly convincing arguments in favour of him giving up. Some of them involved moving on with his life, letting the future take over and a new era of genuine lasting peace reign in Algol instead of literally resurrecting things from thousands of years ago. Others involved the most likely results of waking someone after two millennia of crude, involuntary magically induced stasis. Lutz had told him enough horror stories about his first hand experiences with cryogenic hibernation and they had been highly scientific, sterile, well planned out beforehand on the part of the volunteer. Lutz hadn't even known what exactly had happened to Alis, whether she had unknowingly been hit by the Medusa's gaze or whether Dark Falz had done something to her, something in blind, horrible retribution that was meant to have a delayed effect. If she wasn't already dead, if her body actually functioned properly rather than falling apart the second she was revived, leaving him with a lot of explaining to do to the Termi tourist board, there was a very high likelihood that the process would break her mind, maybe even negatively affect her soul. That had been some very nasty magic and the stasis might be the only thing keeping the situation from going horribly wrong. More practically, two thousand years of change was a lot for a mind to digest once it had finished coping with sudden awakening and processing what the fuck had happened to its body. Hell, the planet had been terraformed and hit with cataclysms so many times, the continents weren't even in the same place, never mind how many times civilisation had completely collapsed and been rebuilt. It was too much change to wake up to.

The cats of Myst Vale had informed him that there was no point reviving Myau's body, as he hadn't been using it for a good long while now. Musk Cats were different, Lutz didn't understand them and Rune certainly never would.

No, there were two things that stopped Rune from ever giving up his search for a way to revive Alis, a secondary, strictly secret duty that had been passed down from Lutz to Lutz: the inexplicably serene smile on the face of that statue on a hill in Termi and the voice that meant he never dared to personally pick up the Elysdeon again.


End file.
